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Meteor Co-Founder, Ben Chow, has been sued in a class action lawsuit on allegations of spearheading so-called fraudulent schemes that involved at least 15 memecoins, including MELANIA and LIBRA. The revised complaint, submitted on Tuesday, alleges that the tokens exploited the likenesses and names of high-profile individuals, including former First Lady of the United States Melania Trump and Argentine President Javier Milei, to appeal to investors.
These public figures were used, according to the filing, as window dressing to provide legitimacy to what the plaintiffs termed a coordinated liquidity trap. The complaint states that Chow and the affiliates of Meteor and Kelsier Ventures, headed by Hayden Davis, used deceptive promotion campaigns to push the sale of meme tokens and then arranged sudden price drops. The plaintiffs insist that Trump and Milei did not participate in the token projects on an operational basis and therefore ought not to be legally liable to investors for covering their losses.
The MELANIA memecoin, initially marketed as a politically affiliated cryptocurrency with Melania Trump, surged in price after its launch but crashed shortly after. Its developers were accused of dumping vast amounts of the token supply on the market, resulting in huge losses by crypto investors.
Additionally, the LIBRA token, which was marketed as an initiative to help small businesses in Argentina, followed a similar course. It shot up during the launch, before declining the majority of its value in a few hours.
President Milei gave a brief endorsement of LIBRA on his official Twitter account, but deleted the post after the token's value collapsed. He was accused of fraud, but the anti-corruption office in Argentina later ruled that he did not violate any ethical laws in society.
The suit names Ben Chow as the head of the business, collaborating with Meteora, Jupiter co-founder Ng Ming Yeow, and Kelsier Ventures family members. The complaint identifies five tokens, namely, the libra, MELANIA, ENRON, TRUST, and M3M3, as the primary sources of the suspected pattern of fraud.
Chow himself had earlier denied any participation, stating that he or Meteora had no tokens or insider information regarding the Libra project. In February, he stepped down at Meteor when the scandal became widely known. The case is still in progress, with the plaintiffs claiming damages to investors who were victims of the so-called memecoin schemes.
